Under Oath

Secrets in the Dying

i

"Ma'am. We're from the local police HQ and with your permiss-" 

Harold Kruger never stood a reputation for being interrupted. But he could make an exception, the circumstances demanded it of him. There was something about the woman that cut him mid-sentence, something about the way her voice sounded, prepared. She was visibly blind, there was scope for feeling sorry for her, but years of practice had hardened Harold into the type where he didn't care for anyone really.

"I know. The nurse told me on her way here. Sit." 

Harold motioned his men to a row of seven yellow plastic chairs lined up against the brick wall from where the woman lay, still as a water dancer's stance, propped up against her mattress. 

"Ma'am-" 

"Hatch."

 Harold coughed lightly, his competence momentarily tested. 

"You can call me Hatch, Officer." 

"Right. Hatch. How are you?" 

"I'm....not good, I think that's readily apparent," the woman declared, spreading her arms over her supple thighs, now marred with scratch marks nothing less than what often looked like the signature of rabid dogs. 

"They did this," Hatch mumbled, "and this. Men." her fingers ran across a deep fleshy wound on the side of her right arm and to burns across either sides of her cheeks.

"I'm sorry Miss Pollard,"  Harold's face seized up in tired grief as far as the man was capable of feeling grief.

"How do you know my name? My full name?" The woman suddenly snapped, her sunglasses extending over the bridge of her nose, at the tip of falling. 

"The nurse told us. On her way in." 

"Right. Of course," Hatch smiled. To her it was a smile, but to the seven men seated beside her it looked ghastly on her assaulted face, not that the sight was an assault to their own eyes.

ii

"Tell us what happened tonight. Start from," Harold paused, his hands cutting through the air dramatically, as if lost in deep thought, "....as far as you can remember."

 "I was alone that evening, heading home from classes," Hatch recalled, "when they came." 

"You were in the park? Leading away from St.Louis church, towards Parker Street?" 

"Yes."

 "And these men who approached you, did you catch their names, felt a mark on their face or body? Anything?" 

"There was one. Andy. That's all I could catch before they attacked me." 

"Miss Pollard." 

"Hatch."

 "Hatch. Can you tell us what happened, in a little more detail?" 

"I couldn't see anything. I can't see," she insisted, tapping the edges of her sunglasses, "I was walking towards Perkins Street." 

"Parker Street," Harold corrected. The man loved correcting anyone who wasn't him. 

"I'm just a little lost officer. Trauma. A lot happened tonight." 

"And I couldn't be more sorry. There's no need to panic. Now if you could only help us nab these guys." 

"There were around five I think. I heard five different voices, not distinct, any of them, but there could have been more ....or less, I couldn't be too sure."